Its no Butter No Chicken you all. Then why call it that? Well search! Most people search for vegan butter chicken for some reason and not vegan soycurls in no butter butter sauce or other variations ;). So here goes.

This recipe adapted from my popular Butter Tofu recipe. To make a skillet version, use the butter tofu recipe with soy curls. Just simmer the soy curls in the sauce with a up of water for 15 minutes. I use a combination of soy curls and chickpeas in this version and don’t use any oil. You can add some oil or vegan butter with the cashew cream to make it even more like restaurant flavor profile. Don’t have soy curls ? use all chickpeas, beans or veggies.

Its a super simple recipe. Blend up the tomato, garlic, ginger, chile. Add to the IP along with spices, soy curls and chickpeas, close and cook. Add some cashew cream and simmer for a few minutes to thicken, garnish and done! The garnish of fresh minced ginger and chile and some dried fenugreek takes this dish to an amazing flavor level. Make it!

Soy curls are a meat sub made with whole non gmo soy beans. You can find them in some stores or online on amazon. You can also use other bean curls! Look for “Wadi” in Indian stores made of moong dal, black eyed peas and other lentils/beans. The texture is different but they work equally well. You can also use seitan, tvp, soy chunks, beyond meat strips other chickin subs.

This recipe is adapted from my Butter Tofu “Paneer” recipe and the IP method is adapted from twosleevers’s butter chicken. Urvashi has some great tips on cooking indian food under pressure. This recipe benefits from a good fresh garam masala blend. I usually keep my garam masala in whole spice form and then grind it about a 1/4 cup at a time for a potent spice blend. Dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi) can be bought online or from an Indian store. If you cant find them, omit and add 1/4 tsp ground mustard instead. Indian restaurants generally add fenugreek for the flavor and of course a ton of cream and butter.

If you make the recipe, please do rate it. I also love to see your creations, so do tag me #veganricha on Instagram.

Add pureed tomato mixture to the Instant pot or pressure cooker. Add soy curls, chickpeas, spices and salt. Close the lid and cook on Manual for 8 to 10 minutes. (6 minutes for stove top pressure cooker). Quick release after 10 minutes.

Start the IP on saute (medium heat for stove top pressure cooker). Add the cashew cream, garam masala, sweetener and fenugreek leaves and mix in. Bring to a boil, taste and adjust salt, heat, sweet. Add more cayenne and salt if needed. Fold in the chopped green chile, ginger and cilantro and press cancel(take off heat).

At this point you can add some vegan butter or oil for additional buttery flavor. Serve hot over rice or with flatbread or Naan.

Recipe Notes

To make this without nuts use 1/3 cup or more coconut cream instead of cashew cream.

Use all chickpeas, seitan, other meat subs, or veggies to make soyfree. When using subs that dont absorb much liquid, use larger quantity (for eg 2.5 to 3 cups shredded seitan to sub the soycurls+chickpeas).

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Comments

Hey Richa! Thank you so much for mentioning my butter chicken recipe! I too use soy curls in a vegetarian version of butter chicken. It’s so good thst way! Your recipe here sounds delicious. Can’t wait I try it.

Thank you urvashi! I was hesitant to try the no roasting method when i saw you mention it in the IP group (ingrained Indian cooking :). Then i tried my butter tofu with it and it worked well. Soy curls are definitely a great sub. I do prefer stove top and baked tofu 🙂

the 6 minutes is for high pressure (15 psi) as many stove top pressure cookers just have one high setting. I have made it in my old cooker at high pressure. Keep the flame at medium to slightly lower to avoid scorching. If the dish dries up or scorches easily, try 10-12 minutes at low pressure.

I used soy chunks for the first time this week and they didn’t really excite me. The slight rubberyness in the chew and small burst of veggie flavor did it. Can you describe the ‘wadi’ a little more? I have an excellent Indian market here in NJ and would like to try it. The spice blend in this recipe looks like a pleasant smelling house next week. Thanx.

soy chunks generally would need a longer simmer time to infuse with flavor and also reduce the chewyness. I am also not personally fond of them, but they work with the long simmer time. Wadi are made by soaking the beans or dal overnight, then blending to a thick batter, piping that batter onto sheets and sun drying it. flavor depends on the bean. Most wadis are not chewy as the beans or dals used dont have that property like soy beans. Depending on the size, the wadis might need additional cooking time to rehydrate well. get a small packet of moong or urad dal wadi to try out.

Thanks for your quick answer! I made this last night for dinner with the soy chunks. They are sponge-like and did require a bit more water. But the flavor of the dish was excellent and I am looking forward to leftovers tonight 🙂 Thanks for introducing me to something new!

Thanks for the great dinner! Made this a couple of nights ago with chickpeas. Guess i was too impatient to wait the 2 days for Amazon to deliver. Used the instantpot for 8min and then put in for 1 more with veggies added and it came out great! I made a double recipe so we’ll see how well it freezes 😉

I made this for dinner in my crockpot and it was amazing! The whole family gobbled it up. The fenugreek leaves add such a great flavor to many of your recipes- this one is going in the rotation for sure!

The paprika might be hot. Sometimes the green chiles are also overly hot, esp with the seeds. The whole batch might be very mild and one will be super hot and blending that one with the seeds will elevate the heat of the overall dish quite a bit.So maybe use just half and remove all seeds before using. Also omit the cayenne.

Ooh, I’ve never tried soy curls! They look remarkably amazing in this recipe. I miss Indian food SO much now–since going back to university, I haven’t had the time to make a nice curry! The closest to Indian food I’ve gotten to is cooked beans and brown rice with turmeric powder! LOL!

I notice you’ve posted a few recipes with soy curls. Last year I bought a case from Amazon and we didn’t like them at all. I’ve got both your books and given them to my kids with kitchens. I like the fact that most of your ingredients are fresh and unprocessed… What could I substitute for the soy curls?

just bought some soy curls and I’m looking forward to trying them out tonight with this recipe, which looks great. I don’t have fenugreek leaves, but do have fenugreek seeds — can I substitute them or should I go with the ground mustard? thanks!

Spices are for flavor. leave out the heat = cayenne, green chile, black pepper etc. Use green bell pepper instead of green chile for the flavor but no heat, and sweet paprika for cayenne for the smoky flavor if needed. For most of the recipes, the heat can left out completely.

This recipe was AMAZING! I was sooo happy with it.. so flavorful and saucy! I loved the soy curls too.. first time trying those! I doubled the recipe so I’d have enough for leftovers and that was a GOOD call.. Will definitely make again and again and again!! Thank you!!!!

I’ve made this a few times now and it turned out fantastic every time. I used sunflower seeds instead of cashews due to allergies and it was really creamy. This and the Any Bean Curry from your book are my absolute favourites so far. I became a vegan 4 months ago and am so glad I found your blog. Thanks and keep up the great work!

I made this tonight and it was SO GOOD. I love the stovetop tofu version so I was excited to find a different take on it. I’m fairly new to instant pot cooking and this was super easy. I modified the tomatoes a bit, using one 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes because I like a lot of sauce and I like the consistency a little on the thicker side. I upped the salt and sugar a tiny bit but did everything else the same. Like everything I’ve made of Richa’s, it was fantastic!

I got an Instant Pot for Christmas and made this last night. I think my soy curls were a bit stale but that’s on me. LOL Overall, this came out great but I’m wondering if I released pressure too soon. Since I’m new to using one of these things this instruction confused me – “cook on Manual for 8 to 10 minutes. Quick release after 10 minutes.” – Was I supposed to wait an additional 10 minutes AFTER the cooking process and then quick release? Sorry if this is a dumb question! I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this thing! 😀

The Instant pot or any pressure cooker has a “coming to pressure” time (which varies based on size or the cooker and amount of the dish), the actual cook time (which is Manual or other mode and time mentioned), and once the cooking in done, there is a pressure release time. Natural release is when you leave the IP alone and let the pressure come down by itself. It can take 15 mins or longer. Most recipes use natural release so you dont have to stand around to man the food. Some dishes can get overcooked in that much time, so some recipes mention if you should do a quick release immediately after the cook time is finished (i.e manually move the valve to venting(carefuly using a towel or a long spatula as the steam will be hot through the valve)), or the recipe mention release after some minutes manually depending on the recipe. You can let the pressure release naturally in this one. It just adds a bit of time to the dish.

Apparently this is on me, because no one else mentions it, but I’m kind of confused. It seems some ingredients are listed twice, are you supposed to use both amounts? ie chiles, am I using “1 hot or mild green chile” and “1/2 moderately hot green chile finely chopped, or use 2 tbsp finely chopped green bell pepper”?

yes, they are used in the order listed. The second one is garnish. Sometimes it is confusing to use divided(1 1/2 green chilis, divided). I use that when it is pretty straight forward or list them twice to reduce confusion in longer recipes.

I am just making this recipe for the first time, and love soy curls but am not so into chick peas. Do you have an idea as to whether I would need to double the water if I wanted to cut the chick peas and double the soy curls? Thanks for a great alternative to Urvashi’s IP Butter Chicken (which I have also made and like, I just like to have different protein options)!

We made this tonight, and I just had to leave a comment. A PERFECT recipe! The whole family loved it (even my daughter who hates soy curls) and it took under 30 minutes to make (not 30 after I chopped a bunch of veggies). We ate an hour ago and I’m still smiling. THANK YOU!

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